Canada’s Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement with China (China FIPA), which entered into force October 1, 2014, is a laudable step towards norms-based economic relations in the Asia-Pacific. My two goals here are to briefly introduce key developments in the China FIPA and to put in context the surprisingly… Continue reading

Canada’s abundance of non-renewable energy resources, such as conventional and synthetic crude and natural gas, are vital to the national economy. According to Statistics Canada, jobs from this sector currently contribute to 4% of Canada’s total labour force… Continue reading

The world is changing, thanks in great part to unparalleled levels of migration. According to the United Nations, more than 230 million people were living outside of their countries of birth in 2013, many of them originally born in Asia… Continue reading

The Chinese renminbi, or “people’s currency” (人民币), has been internationalizing more rapidly than experts had previously forecast, even though the country’s capital account remains closed and the currency’s exchange rate is still not allowed to float freely. The redback is crossing… Continue reading

Dr. Tiberghien at the G-20 in St. Petersburg, Russia (September 2013).

In the wake of major leadership change around East Asia, what will be the major trends in the Asia/Pacific region in 2014? Did the battle over the Chinese Air Defense Identification Zone… Continue reading

Xu Xiaojie, Director of World Energy at the Institute of World Economics and Politics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences discusses the relationship between Chinese and Canadian energy companies, and the motivations behind Chinese investment in Canada. Continue reading

Memo #195 – China played a key part in the recent collapse of the iron ore pricing regime. This was an unintended consequence of a mix of bold negotiating tactics and competing domestic interests, which made it difficult to implement a consistent international procurement policy. Chinese actions destabilized global market institutions and paradoxically caused their liberalization. Continue reading

Memo #192 – Canada and Japan are set to begin negotiations to develop an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) on November 26th, 2012. Canada hasn’t completed a preferential trade agreement with any of its Asia Pacific partners, and Japan has yet to finalize an EPA with a G8 country. As negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Korea have entered their seventh year and as regional competitors, like Australia, are forging new trade partnerships in Asia, Canada feels pressured to assert itself in the region. If Canada can learn from the stalled Korean negotiations, the Canada-Japan EPA can become the platform to accomplish such a task. Continue reading